Is After-Life possible Atheistically?

Started by flippingboats, July 05, 2014, 01:35:28 AM

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flippingboats

I recently had watched a Morgan Freeman documentary that touched the subject of after life. What caught my attention was a neuro-plastician that felt how he became the universe. Then Morgan Freeman explained this by saying that the particles in our nervous system might be quantum entangled keeping us conscious on a "universal scale?" after we die.

That just sounded out of the box, a pretty interesting concept.

That's the part of the video that talks about the process. (not the part of the doctor, I wish I could link the entire documentary here but the copyrights, you know..)
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/tracking-souls-to-the-afterlife/p5l8lxh

Let me know, I hope we can more or less start a discussion on that, here, since my family won't touch this subject (religious .-.).

PickelledEggs

After life exists. Just not for the dead person lol It's certainly afterlife for everyone else that's alive still

Nam

I'll be alive, surfing the waves of the Sun -- then eaten by space birds who say I taste like chicken.

Damn space birds. :sad:

-Fried Nam
Mad cow disease...it's not just for cows, or the mad!

Gawdzilla Sama

I use quantum entanglement to straighten out my spaghetti after I cook it. (That's a sigh at the liberal use of words people don't really understand, btw.)

As for an afterlife, I used to imagine that we are in a larval stage while we're alive here, and that death was our transition to something higher, and that most of us wouldn't make the transition rather like silk worms don't get past the cocoon stage in many cases.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

SGOS

Yesterday, NPR was interviewing a couple of musicians, and during the conversation, they covered an experience where one of them got deathly sick and flat lined in the hospital twice.  He said the sensation during his near death experience was a complete blackout, he didn't even experience the black in the blackout.  There wasn't even a sensation of "experience."

No book to write or movie to make here.  Sorry.

stromboli

First of all, "possible atheistically" is essentially show me the proof and I'll believe. I was in a coma for 4 days in 1971. Nada, squat, no afterlife shit, nothing. The problem is that all so-called "afterlife" evidences are either a load of BS or some type of brain chemical reaction we (as yet) don't understand.

I have an open mind, so show me some substantial, quantifiable, repeatable science, I'll believe.

Mermaid

My molecules will become the molecules of something else. That's pretty much as far as it goes as I see it. So I will become part of a  pokeweed or a maple tree or some crabgrass.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

SGOS

Quote from: Mermaid on July 05, 2014, 09:15:20 AM
My molecules will become the molecules of something else. That's pretty much as far as it goes as I see it. So I will become part of a  pokeweed or a maple tree or some crabgrass.
One thing for sure; If you're crabgrass, you will live forever.  I'm currently fighting it in my lawn, and I've come to the conclusion that it's immortal.

stromboli

Quote from: SGOS on July 05, 2014, 09:20:25 AM
One thing for sure; If you're crabgrass, you will live forever.  I'm currently fighting it in my lawn, and I've come to the conclusion that it's immortal.

I have killed Crabgrass with my bare hands.

Mermaid

Quote from: stromboli on July 05, 2014, 09:28:36 AM
I have killed Crabgrass with my bare hands.
I have killed crabgrass with a stern look.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

SGOS

I am humbled, standing in defeat among Gods of the crabgrass.

Shol'va

Rather than saying "yes", I'd rather ask why a possible different state of existence beyond our flesh and blood would require a supreme being? I don't see the existence of "afterlife" contingent on the existence of a god any more than our existence as a species here and now requires a supreme dictator.
I like to point this out sometimes in debates, if the opportunity arises. One could be an atheist and still believe in ghosts, the afterlife, etc. Basically the exact same beliefs as Christians minus the Satan and God figures.

the_antithesis

Quote from: flippingboats on July 05, 2014, 01:35:28 AM
That just sounded out of the box, a pretty interesting concept.

Really? That sounds pretty fucking stupid to me.

Let us know if that neuro-plastician manages to maintain his consciousness after he finally dies and stays dead. They we'll see if his brain patter exists somewhere and shit.

Until then, it's just childish stupidity again.

Shol'va

Quote from: stromboli on July 05, 2014, 08:58:06 AM
I was in a coma for 4 days in 1971. Nada, squat, no afterlife shit, nothing.
Well stromboli, that's obvious. You weren't dead. Your soul was trapped in your body still, so duh, you didn't get to see anything. Sorry! Repent before it's too late!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SGOS

Quote from: Shol'va on July 05, 2014, 11:33:20 AM
Rather than saying "yes", I'd rather ask why a possible different state of existence beyond our flesh and blood would require a supreme being? I don't see the existence of "afterlife" contingent on the existence of a god any more than our existence as a species here and now requires a supreme dictator.
If one is going to go to the trouble of inventing the concept of an afterlife, someone else is going to ask, "Why?"  Then some enterprising guru answers the question by inventing the concept of a god that made the afterlife.  This leads to more questions and more concepts that must exist to support the original concept that started the chain of events.  Now add some chanting, candles, and precious artifacts of this and that, and Bingo!  You've got yourself a religion.